Installing the mod

In Windows, navigate to the folder that contains your BF2 installation. This folder should contain a folder called Battlefield 2. For a box copy, the folder should be called EA GAMES; for Revive, the folder should be called Revive; for HD Remastered, the folder should be called BF2HDRemastered.

Open Heat of Battle.zip. Drag and drop the Battlefield 2 folder from that zip into this folder. Overwrite any files. (After doing this, make sure that you have the folder ESAI in Battlefield 2/mods/bf2/ or else the game will crash on starting a map!)

Navigate to mods/Heat_of_Battle/. Open any map packs you have downloaded. Drag and drop the Levels folder from the map pack zip into the Heat of Battle folder.

Open the hotfix patch. Drag and drop the objects_weapons_server.zip file into the mods/Heat_of_Battle/ folder. Overwrite the existing file.

Installing Reshade

First, make sure you have the correct Reshade. If you’re using HD Remastered, you MUST use the Reshade for HD Remastered. Otherwise, you can use either Reshade in the downloads. I recommend the non-HD Remastered version because it has a few more effects, but they should look similar.

Navigate to the Battlefield 2 folder. This should be EA GAMES\Battlefield 2, Revive\Battlefield 2, or BF2HDRemastered\Battlefield 2.

Drag and drop the files in the Reshade zip into this folder. Overwrite any files.

Installing HD terrain textures

Drag and drop the entire Common_client_hd_terrain.zip into the Heat_of_Battle folder.

Installing custom shader cache

The shader cache is what causes the “Please wait, optimizing shaders” message. It can affect the shininess and reflectivity of the weapon models. This is particularly important for Heat of Battle, since the realistic weapon lighting is highly dependent on environment map shininess. If your weapons don’t look the way they do in my screenshots, try installing this custom shader cache.

Navigate to Documents\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2\cache.

Open the most recently modified folder. It should be something like {D7B71... If you don't have this folder, start the game and load a map so the game can optimize shaders first, then come back.

Open the shader cache zip. Drag the individual files in the zip into the Documents\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2\cache\{D7B71... folder. Replace everything.

If for whatever reason it doesn't work or you don't like the results, delete the entire {D7B71... folder and load a map so the game optimizes shaders.

In the future, if you update your graphics drivers and the game optimizes shaders again, you'll have to repeat this process so the weapons look shiny again.

Playing the mod

You can launch the mod by starting BF2.exe and going into the community tab of the launcher, then clicking “Custom Games” and “Heat of Battle”. However, I recommend creating a Windows shortcut to launch the mod quicker.

Once you’re in-game, I recommend playing using a Local Coop server (not Singleplayer). To do this, click Multiplayer, then Create Local. This gives you more options, so you can choose the spawn and revive time, number of bots, and bot difficulty. I recommend a 3 second spawn time, 5 second revive time, 32 bots, and bot difficulty at 70 or higher. If you want more bots, lower the max players slider.

Before selecting your maps, make sure you set the game mode to Co-op! Then click start server, and you’ll be on your way to feeling the Heat of Battle!

If you enjoyed playing, please vote Heat of Battle for mod of the year! Let's show ModDB how awesome the BF2 modding community is!

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but actually there is a number on the end of the file name it has a number of 1 to 3 of each file which one should i copy and replace the files? and what kind of patch should i'll be using for the BF 2

Hi! your mod rocks! i wish for a standalone version(like BFHD) but i have seen some little inconsistencies:chinese attack chopper dont have rocket tweak; The europeans tanks don't have zoom, the Abrams have a "turbo" (sprint key) who does Nothing?and, perhaps it's my TV, but some textures of the tank scopes seems misaligned in 1920/1080?Beside, your work is amazing, with a sense of, not realism, but credibility in weapons kit, and some good gameplay tweaks (health regen, infinite sprint) good job :)